Cities around the world observed Climate Week during September 17-24 with educational panels, rallies and marches, and calls for action. I’m still catching up on some of the recorded events I hoped to learn from–but there is no shortage of climate news at the end of this hot summer. Good news and bad news.
Climate impacts
Unusually Warm Atlantic Ocean Is Supercharging Hurricane Idalia (Bloomberg [gift link], August 29, 2023)
Climate Contradiction: Too Much Rain, Even Where We Need It (The Messenger, August 30, 2023)
Climate Change Has Finally Come for Burning Man (Wired, September 4, 2023)
US sets new record for billion-dollar climate disasters in single year (Guardian, September 11, 2023)
Half the World’s Population Faced Extreme Heat for at Least 30 Days This Summer (Scientific American, September 7, 2023)
New Orleans declares emergency over saltwater intrusion in drinking water (The Guardian, September 22, 2023)
Climate change and NYC: Historic rains buckle city’s infrastructure, again (NBC News, September 29, 2023)
Policy and community action
Bad:
The EPA removes federal protections for most of the country’s wetlands (NPR, August 29, 2023)
Our Green Transition May Leave Black People Behind (Hammer & Hope, Summer 2023)
Not to overemphasize the good, but there’s a fair amount of good news:
After a year and a half, negotiators finally have a draft of the global plastics treaty (Grist, Seotember 5, 2023)
California is suing the pants off Big Oil:
California For the Win (Drilled, September 16, 2023)
Indigenous group plans to buy back some ancestral lands in Mass. and build climate resilience (WBUR, August 31, 2023)
Community banding together to challenge their local utility:
How HEATED readers are moving the needle (HEATED, September 22, 2023)
New jobs just dropped:
Want to join the American Climate Corps? Here’s what we know so far. (Grist, September 20, 2023)
Science!
Large positive ecological changes of small urban greening actions (British Ecological Society, August 21, 2023)
Spoiler, most of them are on Mastodon now:
Thousands of scientists are cutting back on Twitter, seeding angst and uncertainty (Nature, August 16, 2023)
I generally feel that carbon capture gets a bit too much attention in the news in proportion to how developed and effective the technology currently is, but this is interesting.
Scientists Find Success With New Direct Ocean Carbon Capture Technology (Inside Climate News, Sept 2, 2023)
I got interested in galls during my ecology class field trip–for example!–so I loved reading this interview with the folks who created a website for identifying galls in the wild.
Identifier Profile: Gallformers (iNaturalist, September 1, 2023)
Artificial intelligence technology behind ChatGPT was built in Iowa — with a lot of water (AP News, September 9, 2023)
Climate feels
Stop Calling It “Climate Anxiety.” It’s Climate Dread. (The New Republic, August 28, 2023)
This post proposes an update on the classic 5 stages: ignorance, avoidance, doom, all the feels, purpose. Feels about right to me.
5 Stages of Climate Feelings (We Can Fix It, August 31, 2023)
I also really appreciate her follow-up on climate disengagement.
Explaining climate inaction (We Can Fix It, September 28, 2023)
Posters from the Climate March on NYC:
Climate storytelling
An inside look at SimEnvironment, Maxis’ long-lost toxic waste simulator (The Science of Fiction, September 5, 2023)
The Media’s Role in Criminalizing Protest (Drilled, August 22, 2023)
Such a strange and fascinating history:
Climate Lessons From A Lost Land (Noema, September 6, 2023)
Sara Davis 